Photo Credit - Masanori Udagawa / Photowellington.com

Story courtesy of College Sport Media

It was a successful Winter Tournament Week for Wellington’s netball teams.

In a healthy set of results for the sport in Wellington, four local schools booked their places for next month’s NZSS Netball Championships in Christchurch.

St Mary’s College (tournament winner), Tawa College (runners-up), Scots College (fourth) and Wellington Girls’ College (fifth) all finished inside the required top five for Nationals at the Lower North Island Netball Tournament.

This is the first time in at least the past 11 LNISS tournaments (online results go back to 2012) that four Wellington schools have qualified for Nationals.

The only other non-Wellington school to qualify this year from this zone is New Plymouth Girls’ High School. Last year three Wellington schools qualified, St Mary’s (who finished third), Tawa (10^th) and Queen Margaret College (16^th).

The NZSS netball tournament is one of the most competitive of all on the national school sporting calendar, with just 16 teams involved and no weak teams. Of the three zones, the lower North Island and South Island get five entries each and the Upper North Island six.

In a near carbon-copy of their recent Wellington RSSL Division 1 final, St Mary’s beat Tawa College 38-37 in a thriller at Pettigrew Green Arena in Napier to retain their LNISS title.

St Mary’s defended their Leilani Reid Memorial Trophy title for the first time by winning all 10 of their matches in the five-day tournament.

Prior to beating Tawa College in the final, St Mary’s beat Scots College 40-24 in their semi-final, who in turn were defeated by New Plymouth in the 3 v 4 match.

With New Zealand U21 player Phoenix Schwalger back from international duties after missing the recent Wellington final, St Mary’s shooting average was 88 percent over the five days. St Mary’s were awarded the cup for the highest shooting average.

Runners-up Tawa College arrived at the final against St Mary’s after beating New Plymouth Girls’ High School 52-37 in their semi-final.

Fourth placed Scots College will be going to Nationals for the first time in their third year as a full co-educational school.

Scots were fourth after being a Division 2 side in this winter’s Wellington RSSL competition. They beat Kapiti College 43-24 in that final and carried that momentum into the LNISS tournament.

After missing out to tournament champions St Mary’s in their semi-final, Scots pushed New Plymouth Girls’ close in their 3-4 match, going down 30-33.

Scots College Director of Netball Ngarama Milner-Olsen said that making Nationals is a continuation of the upward trajectory of the school’s netball programme over the past two years.

After winning the B grade at LNISS in 2022, Scots were seventh in A grade last year. “This result last year far exceeded our own expectations, but we have confidence in our players and their work ethic and team comradery is strong and something we can pride ourselves on,” said Milner-Olsen.

“Leading into LNISS the team was gradually building our connections. We are a team made up of two teams, player make up includes year 9’s through to year 13 our vision is to provide opportunity for all players to play at their playing ability.

“Fast forward to 2024, we are a very young team, however we have full confidence in each and every player to contribute to our team’s performance.  We only train once a week together and they also train once a week with their respective Scots age group teams,

“We don’t tend to focus too much on opposition, in player development it’s important that they focus on themselves and on their role out on court. Our team connections and performance culture are what holds us strong, players competitiveness and love for the sport comes through in their play, their support for each other on and off the court is what secondary school netball should be about, we worked hard and coming fourth is well deserved for the girls.

“Nationals is another opportunity for the Scots College girls to play against the best secondary schools in New Zealand, only a few players across the country get this opportunity, for our team it’s about focusing on our purpose, controlling the controllables and ultimately continue growing their game and enjoy the sport they love.”

When it came to the final set of matches of the tournament, Wellington Girls’ College had the most riding on their 5 v 6 fixture with Napier Girls’.

At stake was qualification for Nationals, and WGC came through to win 32-28. At one stage they were behind by six goals, so a 10-goal swing to win.

WGC coach Sam Hannah said this was the game the game and the situation they team had been preparing for all year, having deliberately timed their run to peak at the LNISS tournament and having worked hard on their mental toughness and resolve.

“Our players all gelled right from the first game and the week went from there,” said Sam.

“A lot of the reason for our positive results at LNISS is because of how we came together and how we had the mental capacity right to the very end.

“The reason why we got the result we go was that the players knew how to push themselves and grind it out until the very last game. There was no giving up.”

This ability to dig deep to the end was shown in in early wins, such as their 33-28 win over St Oran’s in pool play and their 29-28 win over Queen Margaret College.

“Beating St Orans was our first big team achievement, and once the girls got that result, they knew they were very capable of taking on the next lot of teams that they were facing.

“Another big game was against QMC, which decided who would progress to play in the all-important 5 v 6 game, and then to come back from six goals down to win that was fantastic.”

Wellington Girls’ were well led on the court by co-captains, goal attack Tapini Raea (year 12) and wing attack Payton Wong (year 13).

Special mention to goal defender Eva Melling for snaffling a match-winning intercept in the dying moments of their match over QMC.

Queen Margaret College (eighth) and Sacred Heart College (ninth) were the next highest finishing Wellington region schools at this year’s LNISS tournament, giving Wellington schools six of the top 10 places.

Wellington Girls’ College are the only Wellington team to have won the NZSS tournament (since 1993) in 1999 – so it will be 25 years between wins should any of the four Wellington schools lift the trophy this year.

The draw for Nationals in Christchurch from 8-11 October is imminent.

Article added: Tuesday 01 October 2024